Working the Law! (2)

Working with the Law (2) (continued)

I knew a woman who once lived in a beautiful home in an exclusive suburban district with every comfort that wealth could supply to make her happy. This home was a large rambling house, facing a beautiful lake, with green terraces sloping to its edge.
Flower gardens, perfectly kept, were scattered freely along each path throughout the estate. She had many servants to help her, and from observation her life was just about *Instant website promotion! Free color text links!as complete as one might dream about. But, with all this wealth and beauty, the woman was heard to remark to her friends that she hoped the day would come when she would be relieved of the big house and all its problems and could live in a trunk.
She wanted a room to herself, for herself, and just large enough to move about without
any extra space to dust and to keep clean.
A few years elapsed. Her husband died and left the estate to her. She sold the
home at a sacrifice. Her other holdings depreciated so much in value through unwise
investments and transfers that she had but a small income left.
She went to live with a sister, and, true to her wish, she now has a small room
on the third floor and practically lives in a trunk. Whether she is happier now than
before I do not know, but I doubt it. One thing I do know; that is, she gradually led
herself to the small room and privations when her consciousness began to grow small
and limited. She unconsciously touched the creative principle and supplied it with ideas
of smallness and privacy and limitation which materialized within a few years’ time.
As we assimilate in mind these ideas or mental pictures, we, knowingly or
unknowingly, exercise a power to produce them. This creative process continues
working night and day until the idea is completed. We cannot picture thoughts of
poverty, failure, disease and doubt, and expect in return to enjoy wealth, success,
health, and courage. It just can’t be done, any more than the photographer can take a
beautiful picture of a homely creature.

Working the Law! (Continued)

There is a marvelous inner world that exists within man, and the revelation of such a world enables man to do, to attain, and to achieve anything he desires within the bounds or limits of Nature. I believe the reason the famous English literary genius, William Shakespeare, is the leading dramatist of the world lies in this realm. The great Greek dramatists with their noted insight always saw the causes in some external fate or destiny that brought about the downfall of their characters, but Shakespeare saw something within the man as the cause of his failure or success.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”
We see Hamlet wrestling with his reluctant, indecisive soul. Macbeth is being pulled and driven by his ambition. Othello is torn and discomfited by his jealousy.
Always the characters were battling with their inner selves as though the dramatist were saying: “You are the master of your circumstance; call forth your power, initiative, and ingenuity, and be the master. Fate is in your hands, determine it.” If every man has the power and privilege to determine his fortune, what is that power? How can we recognize it?
If all conditions are the result of our actions, and all actions are the outcome or the fruit of our ideas, then our ideas must determine the conditions in our daily lives.
An idea is a thought or a group of thoughts. An idea is an image or a picture in the mind. There must have been an idea, a mental picture, back of every well known achievement and invention. From the beginning this is the creative plan. We read in the first book of the Bible that the Great Architect, God, saw a finished pattern or idea before it grew. There was a mental picture established within the mind of the Creator before it became a reality on the without in some form of a creature.
“The Lord God made the earth and the heavens and every plant of the field
BEFORE it was in the earth, and every herb of the field BEFORE it grew.”
Every architect and builder follows the same plan whether he is building or planning a house, a bridge, an institution, or his own life. Every man is his own designer and builder; like the Creator, he makes his creations within before they materialize on the outside. All fears of sickness, poverty, and old age, are impressions, ideas, and mental pictures, long before they become painful realities. Every idea and mental picture must produce after its own kind whether the picture is good or bad; the Law determines it so. The Law does not question or challenge the kind of picture we give to it. It only knows that it must take what is offered or planted, and then proceed to materialize it into a visible form. Some men can visualize great engineering achievements, yet they do not know that by the same method they can overcome their diseases and despairs and enjoy the health and happiness they long for. Mechanical engineering is the same as mental engineering; they are both dependent wholly upon a creative intelligence. Mental photography, like mechanical photography, produces exactly what it sees. A picture of a homely, unsightly person never turns out to look like a Beauty Pageant winner; nor does the little, short person look tall and large on a photograph. A picture of black will not be white; neither can negative, destroying ideas produce constructive and positive results. If the ideas are negative, they will in turn create negative results.